She hadnât considered another date with Rose â not really. The first seemed to exist in itâs own magical little bubble, safely encased in glass and ready to be revisited any time Leona reconsidered downloading Tinder. Maybe that one good date was the reason she deleted it in the first place. Their paths diverged for one night, and then they both branched off again. That had been okay â until Rose showed up at the drive-in. That, as it turned out, was enough to send Leona into her own sort of small tailspin.Â
She needed to see her again. Though, she hadnât expected something quite so public. But here she stood, outside the Goldfinch, just barely resisting the urge to begin pacing around in front of the place. Had she beat Rose here, or had Rose already gone in? And were heels really her best choice, because she was suddenly feeling like she looked like a newborn baby deer. Just as she considered running home to change, slipping out through the back with a poorly concocted excuse about a work emergency putting her behind schedule, she saw her. Leona felt her smile before she was aware of it, and let out an exhale. She approached, âHi.â Leona managed softly, and was immediately convinced that with that one word, she sounded like some social experiment setting out to prove that aliens could properly acclimate if you dressed them up properly. She wrinkled her nose, offering Rose a gentle smile. âConfession â I spent like twenty minutes tearing apart my closet and frantically Googling âcocktail attireâ and Iâm still not entirely sure I got it right,â she hummed. âYou look amazing.â
Despite Roseâs busy schedule between recording podcasts, writing up blog posts, and making sure to keep her head on straight when it came to her time to being at Averyâs for the days she was watching Maya (and Zay), somehow she found herself often drifting back to the thought of ocean blue eyes. Tinder dates was something sheâd done to let off the steam, sometimes it paid off, other times Rose swore up and down she was going to be done with the app forever, and that sentiment only nearly stuck when Leona Landry came into the picture. Their first initial date was something that Rose felt went a lot better than most of her other encounters, if only for the fact that Leonaâs wit was nearly perfectly aligned to her own. It also helped that she had a lyrical laughter, and that when her eyes crinkled up from explaining something she was adamant about she knew she was in for a hell of a story time, and if Rose had to admit it, Leona had one of the soft hands sheâd ever had the pleasure of holding. She wondered if sheâd let her again tonight.Â
The invitation to being her date to the engagement party came as a surprise to Rose, considering their last foray at the drive-in, where the moment between them had been rudely interrupted by some sullen brute, she failed to capture his name, but it didnât go over her head that he seemed pretty possessive of Leona. Maybe thatâs why there hadnât been a second chance for the two, not until now. If there was ever at time to be grateful for Johnâs sense of style (the perfect curator for all things fashion), Rose felt that now as she stood in her royal blue jumpsuit in front of the Gold Finch Hotel. Eyes scanned the crowd for the familiar brunette, and when she caught sight of her she couldnât help but chuckle before she waved. There was a new wave of tension now, not in a bad way, but in a way that made Rose hyper aware that she was nervous. âHey yourself, stranger. Or sorry, should I say the lady of the evening?â Rose asked, as she offered her arm to the woman. âShall we go inside? Iâve seen nothing but food that looks like it should belong on one of those bougie Food Network shows which means, we should probably get out fill before we lose the opportunity again.â A soft laughter fell from her lip as she looked (probably a beat too long) at Leona, she pushed a strand of her hair away from her face as she said, âYou stole my line,â She said with a pout. âThough I was going to say you nailed it gorgeous.âÂ